Visitors
The internet's an amazing place. We get 9000 visitors a month to our website and 100 day (3000 a month) to our blog. Of the website visitors, perhaps 75% of them are unique visitors, meaning visiting for the first time (in web parlance). So - 6750 new people are finding out about Catskill Farms every month of every year (or 324,000 persons have discovered us since the website launch in 2003). It's no wonder we are able to make a sale every once in awhile. For all of you frequent stopper-byers, thank you. And for those who are new to the concept that 'yes, you can buy a country house that works' and 'yes, you can buy a country house that gives pleasure not pain' - Welcome.
Cottage 21 - Sold and Gone
Another Day - Another Closing. What more needs to be said? Today we said goodbye to sweet lil' Cottage 21, the last of the 3 spec homes we started back in November 2008, at the absolute height of the panic and real estate decline. We sold Modern Cottage in May, Cottage 18 in June, and now Cottage 21 in August. This house is sweet - with 2 beds, 2 full baths, open living room space, built out basement, security, audio, wide planks floors, wood burning fireplace, pond view and 6 private acres, I ask - what more could a family want? This one took awhile to bring to a successful conclusion, but we can wait it out these days- even just a year ago, I would have flipped if a closing took this long, since we needed the cash.
The sleeping loft up above looks down onto the living room and fireplace.
Radiator, wide spindles, handhewn beams, galvanized metal sconce, exterior stained green cedar siding.
View of the pond across the street.
And the final profile pic on a morning before a storm.
A masterpiece, by all definitions - a house we are incredibly excited to have designed, built and sold for Norah and Jeffrey.
Cottage 22 Rounding the Final Turn
A polite, respectful, considerate business owner would not sneak up on his right hand guy during a meeting with the future owners of Cottage 22 and snap a high res picture, but obviously, since I took this picture, I'm not that guy. Here is Courtney and Bronson, standing in their future bedroom on a rare bright sunny day. Even this Sunday morning - dark, dreary and depressing. No rafting, no kayaking, no practicing my golf swing. Boooring.
Read a good article in the New Yorker the other day. It was a backward looking analysis of how so many smart people got it all wrong over the past couple of years, and the gist of the story was about overconfidence, and how people come to be overconfident, and how studies show that this then leads to a belief that one can control events that they actually have no control over. Luckily, like I have mentioned earlier - we never suffered from overconfidence - I was always sure a business-ending disaster was just around the corner, even after 40 homes. What drove our success was 'fear' - we feared all the time. Feared our lack of cash, lack of labor resources, - feared our competitors, our enemies, and half the time our customers. This type of fear keeps one alert, careful, diligent. And it seems to have paid off.
I think Bronson's an attorney and Courtney works in public relations, and their dog just sort of doesn't contribute much and mooches off the breadwinners. This weekend's meeting was really just a review to make sure all the orders and decisions we received were interpreted and executed correctly, and off we march into the final 4 weeks of construction. The house is pretty well finished, and we are heading into the floor sanding, kitchen installation, tile phase.
About 1000 sq ft, 2 bedrooms, fireplace, wraparound porch, 1 1/2 baths, wide plank floors, handhewn beams, cable rail - all in about 12 weeks. From raw land to raw leisure.
Looking down the steps at the hand hewn beams.
Here's the downstairs, painted, with james in the background.
Chimney stone is compete, siding is complete, decks and porches are complete except for the railings.
Really cute little cottage with strong architectural lines.
And back to my house with Ruby lounging around in our dining area.
And my son, nephew and niece in our new tub in the addition we just finished.
Marcus, the guy on the left, and I were taking Lucas for a walk in the stroller last evening and made up a game called 'Runaway Baby' where we would very carefully let the stroller roll down the hill unheld by us (we were right there behind it, running with it). Let's just say that game won't be being played much in the future after a little accident that left Lucas with some small scratches, Marcus in tears, and me in big trouble.
Cottage 17, 19 & 22
Cottage 22 on a foggy morning, late July. The bucks county ledgestone chimney stone is nearing the top. We started in late May, and by the end of this month the house should be real close to being finished - which by any measure, is pretty extraordinary. Add in the fact that this summer has SUCKED in regards to rain, and one can get the sense how seriously we take our deadlines. No excuses. The interior of the house is trimmed out, with the handhewn logs set over the weekend. The painter started yesterday, and Tito - being the master painter- will probably be just about finished by the end of the week.
The Barryville cottage, which was the home on the land I just purchased, has a pretty funky bathroom, already installed. We repainted this little house, added some smoke alarms, carbon monoxide detectors, raised some ceilings, repainted the whole thing, fancied up the kitchen and refinished the floors - in sum, made it look fan f$%&*king tastic.
Juan and Joe emerging from the foggy morning.
Cottage 19 - in contract, and 75% finished.
Thom and Bryce came up yesterday for a big day of decisions - they stopped by the kitchen store to say hello to Paul the kitchen guy, stopped by the tile store (Cornerstone Tile in Monticello) to say hi to Denise, then down to the job site for a review of the wall coverings (sheetrock, wood, wainscotting, planking), and a host of other decisions to 'keep the job moving'.
We are hoping to close all 4 of these house in the next 2 months - the Barryville Cottage in the next week or two, and Cottage 17, 22, and 19 in late September. Still not much of a problem finding financing for these homes - we have started using smaller, local banks, we require our clients to be very qualified with 20% down and plenty left over after the transaction, and we are always keeping our eyes on comparable sales. The person who called me an asshole in a comment I posted a few weeks back struck again this morning, reiterating their opinion that I'm an asshole - which like I said, really hurts my feelings especially with exclamation points and what have you. He commented that 'no one cares', exemplified by no comments, which is really low - in my opinion - because you all know how much I dream of a comment filled blog, where everyone asks my opinion and defers to my knowledge and expertise and generally sends well wishes and the like. I guess I have a few thoughts on the matter - 1. what a loser!!, 2. I definitely have to employ the 'asshole technique and method' on more occasions than I wish to in order to keep the business running, and 3. success is the best revenge. And we are having plenty of success, hence sipping frequently that sweet nectar of accomplishment (only after 5pm of course).
